


reddie is real, suck it stephen king

by quaffleswithsyrup



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Bisexual Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Kid Losers Club (IT), M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, ummm - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quaffleswithsyrup/pseuds/quaffleswithsyrup
Summary: yeah, this isn't actually a fic. it's just that i got pissed about all the people saying that richie and eddie had a close, brotherly relationship. they don't deserve to sink my ship. so i wrote an essay about all the evidence that reddie is actually very real!!this only deals with book canon, so sorry about that. you can still read it if you've only seen the movies, though. i think it'll make sense.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	reddie is real, suck it stephen king

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so i don't expect for this to get views but i'm tired of all the homophobes who are inconveniencing me by saying that reddie is platonic. they are in love period

hi, guys. there is a fuckton of evidence supporting that richie tozier and eddie kaspbrak have romantic feelings for each other, even if they don’t know it, and i am pissed that people keep saying this shit is platonic!! so i wrote an essay about it!!!! i’m going to divide this up into three sections, so let’s begin. get cozy, grab a snack, and homophobes, prepare to cower in fear.

_i promise that eddie kaspbrak is not straight:_

eddie is very heavily gay-coded. his sections of the novel are written in very flowery pose. when he dotes on the boys, whether it be his hero-worship for bill or his thinly veiled romantic feelings for richie, there’s a lot of really lovely language. he described bill’s face as “lovely and well-loved” at one point; he thinks a lot about richie’s dreams and desires and how much he admires richie. this is constant throughout the novel. but when he thinks about girls, none of that is there. really, the only things he mentions about greta bowie, who he’s supposed to have a “crush” on as a kid, are her hair and her shoulders. her shoulders. maybe one of the most non-sexual body parts. he never mentions her face or figure, and it’s very short and to the point. there’s a very big difference there. he’s also the only loser who never displayed any sort of reaction when the buttons came off bev’s shirt at 29 neibolt street; and let’s just say that in the sewer scene, he was NOT into it, coming to her like “he would to his mother.” eddie never displays any sort of sexual or romantic attraction to girls; in fact, even his “crush” on greta that i mentioned earlier seems more like he thinks he HAS to like her because he’s a boy.

the kicker comes when we consider the form it takes for eddie. it’s important to remember that the first time he saw a hobo/leper at neibolt street, it was just a person - not it. the hobo came out from the porch, offering to give eddie a blow job. eddie got super freaked out and ran away. well, later on, a morbid sort of curiosity compelled him to go BACK to neibolt street - at which point it took the form of a leper and scared him. it ALSO offered to give him a blow job, saying that it would do it for a dime, anytime, for free, even. the fact that eddie is associating leprosy and rotting from the inside out with receiving a blow job from a man is no coincidence; stephen king doesn’t do that. it almost seems like he’s associating homosexuality with sickness and rotting, doesn’t it?? almost like a young gay boy in the fifties would be scared of his sexuality after being taught all his life that it was bad and a sickness. later, in 1985 when he returns to derry as an adult, he faces it as the rotting corpse of belch huggins at the old baseball diamond. belch ALSO offers to give him a blow job. this is something that STUCK with eddie. it would not be mentioned this many times if it didn’t. it KNOWS your worst fear, and the significance of the leper NEVER EVER being a woman is not lost on me. it was always a man offering homosexual acts.

let’s talk about eddie and anthony perkins. when the big reunion happens in 1985, that’s who eddie is compared to. so obviously, stephen king was only talking about looks. except no, not really. let’s talk about anthony perkins, shall we?? his dad died when he was five, just like eddie. he was in a relationship with his mother that he described as all-consuming, saying that his mother controlled every aspect of his life. that ALSO sounds a lot like eddie, doesn’t it? so now that we’ve established that there is a clear link between eddie and anthony perkins, let’s talk about the fact that anthony perkins was gay. he had exclusively same-sex relationships up until his thirties, and even went to “gay conversion therapy” at one point. there is obviously a clear link between him and eddie, and one that stephen king pointed out.

“but he had a wife!” that he canonically did not love. he married her out of a sense of security; she was basically his mother. he even says at one point that he committed psychological incest when he married her. the only time he’s able to start convincing himself that he loved her is when he’s about to leave and go to derry for good, and that’s because he knows he might never be coming back.

so there it is. i haven’t even gone into the evidence that eddie had a crush on richie specifically, but eddie is one hundred percent gay.

_richie is bisexual and also in love with eddie:_

richie is pretty bi-coded, although there isn’t as much evidence as there is with eddie. the reason i’ve condensed his crush on eddie and the evidence for him being bisexual into one section is because they’re pretty much the same thing; most of the proof that he’s bisexual DOES come from what is a pretty obvious crush on eddie. so here we go. richie does mention a serious girlfriend at one point that he has had sexual relations with (this happens when he’s talking about sandy in the reunion chapter) and he seems to be fairly attracted to bev. he notices how pretty she is, and reacts uncomfortably when her breasts are exposed (all the other losers except eddie do as well). so we know he is attracted to women, which is why i say he’s bisexual rather than just gay.

but richie also seems to be attracted to eddie. he calls eddie “eds”, and is the ONLY loser to ever call him that. he also seems to be constantly vying for eddie’s attention. eddie has a certain sort of hero-worship for bill, as he’s the leader of the group; all of them do. richie acknowledges that if bev were to end up with bill, ben would be upset but see it as perfectly normal. bill is the leader. bill is the hero. but here’s the thing: eddie’s focus is always on bill. and richie ALWAYS tries to deflect that attention. example: when they’re about to go down into the sewers as kids. richie gets all serious for once and expresses concern that eddie shouldn’t come because of his arm. eddie defers to bill, and bill says that eddie can stick with him. so richie, immediately realizing that being serious and vulnerable didn’t work out, starts laughing and saying that bill’s body odor will protect eddie from it. and you know what?? that works. eddie’s attention is back on richie. this happens several times throughout the novel. it isn’t jealousy on richie’s part, per se, because they all look up to bill. richie doesn’t think eddie is being affectionate towards bill, exactly, and it isn’t because it’s bill. it’s richie not being able to stand the thought that eddie’s attention isn’t on him all of the time. he also pinches eddie’s cheeks and calls him cute a million times throughout the book, which of course could just be banter; but, when taken in context with the rest of the flirting, it seems to not be. eddie expresses dismay at having to see his aunts at one point, saying they’ll all talk about how much he’s grown and pinch his cheeks. richie responds with “that’s cause they all know how cute you are, eds - just like me. i saw what a cutie you are the first time i met you.” richie calls eddie “eddie my love” at some point, although he is teasing him super hard.

now there are gonna be a ton of spoilers past this point, so read at your own risk.

eddie’s death scene has a lot of evidence for richie being in love with him. after eddie’s arm gets ripped off and he’s dying, richie is just super frantic, calling him eds a whole ton and asking literally everyone to help eddie. he is absolutely losing it. so eddie says he needs to say something to richie, and richie gets close and “looks down at him desperately” and is just in so much pain. i’m not going to go over eddie’s last words and thoughts at this point, because that’s going to fall under the category of eddie being in love with richie, so i’ll talk about that later. but after eddie dies, bill and bev have to convince him to leave eddie. they HAVE to go fight it and kill it, so bev basically tells richie that if he can’t go kill it, then eddie’s death will have been for nothing. but then, as they’re running to go to try and kill it, bill sees his wife audra held captive by it and has to be pulled away by richie almost in the same way. there’s a parallel there that’s very obvious; eddie is richie’s person, just like audra is bill’s. there’s a big case there for richie being in love with eddie.

after they kill it for real, they have to get out immediately, because the place is literally falling apart. they are going to DIE if they don’t leave. richie tells them all that they HAVE to take eddie’s body out, and they do; at least, they take it through the marked door, out of the chamber where it lived and into the sewers. at that point, they have to leave eddie’s body. he’s too heavy. they can’t carry him all the way out. richie starts sobbing, and this happens: “’it’s too dark,’ richie sobbed. ‘you know… it’s too dark. eds, he…’” they finally manage to convince richie to leave eddie’s body there, and richie leans down and kisses eddie’s cheek. he then stands up, turns around, kicks the door that serves as the entrance to its lair, and screams “fuck you, bitch!” bev asks him why, and he responds with “i don’t know.” but the exact quote from the novel was, “’i don’t know,’ richie said, but he knew well enough.”

there is no way richie’s feelings toward eddie were strictly platonic. absolutely none. there is enough subtext to last a lifetime. there are a ton of tiny little moments that suggest his attraction toward eddie that i didn’t mention, but i really don’t have it in me to bring up every little detail. that would take forever. but i think the evidence i did provide should be more than enough!

_eddie is not only gay, but gay for richie specifically:_

alright, here we go. eddie, as a kid, had a lot of playful banter with richie, but a lot of it was the whole eds thing. every time richie called him eds, he got “mad” at richie and claimed to hate it. but he actually didn’t: “man, he had hated it when richie called him eds…. but he had sort of liked it, too. it was something….like a secret name. a secret identity. a way to be people that had nothing to do with their parents’ fears, hopes, constant demands. richie couldn’t do his beloved voices for shit, but maybe he did know how important it was to creeps like them to sometimes be different people.” so basically, eddie didn’t hate being called eds. not at all. throughout the book, richie is shown to be very in touch with his friends’ emotions and thoughts; he’s extremely intuitive, even if he doesn’t act like it most of the time. so it isn’t a stretch to think that eddie is right; richie could see that eddie was struggling at home with his mother, and gave him the nickname as sort of a secret identity, a way to escape being eddie kaspbrak. and eddie really liked it, whether he knew it or not as a kid. so a lot of the playful banter between them as kids came from this specific nickname and everything that came with it; eddie claimed to hate it, but really they both knew it was a sort of special gift that richie gave to eddie and was a sign of his affection and love.

eddie also knows a ton of stuff about richie. eddie knows exactly what richie wants to do when he’s older - be a world-famous ventriloquist. eddie expresses doubt, thinking he really doesn’t know that it would work out since richie is really really bad at ventriloquism, but he expresses admiration for richie and his big dreams. he knows exactly what kind of tape richie uses to fix his glasses, and he knows what kind of grades richie regularly brings home on his report cards. he notices the kind of stuff about richie that isn’t really common knowledge.

let’s talk about the rocket pop scene. at one point, richie and stan meet up with eddie, eating rocket popsicles. eddie asks richie for a lick, and richie (who is super bad at sharing, by the way) is NOT having it. so he tells eddie that his mom wouldn’t approve, and eddie just kind of says “i’ll chance it” and steals the popsicle. now, at the most basic level, this represents famed hypochondriac eddie kaspbrak licking SOMEONE ELSE’S popsicle. germs, anyone?? stan uris then offers eddie the rest of his popsicle, which eddie does not accept. eddie will share germs with richie and ONLY richie. but this scene can be taken as a metaphor as well. if you have never seen a rocket pop, look it up. they are very phallic popsicles. so this is pretty thinly-veiled metaphor for eddie saying “hey, can i suck your dick?” and richie responding “oh, your mom wouldn’t like it,” and then eddie saying he’ll chance it. either way, this isn’t something eddie’s doing with the rest of his friends, i promise.

spoilers again!! quit reading now if you don’t want them!!

eddie died because it ripped his arm off and the blood loss got him. but he basically died for richie. the reason he went forward to attack it was because he heard richie’s voice saying “help! i’m losing it! someone help me!” richie being in danger pushed eddie past the breaking point, and he sprung forward to attack it with his aspirator. obviously, that doesn’t work out in his favor.

as he’s on the ground dying (and as richie is frantically trying to help him, as i mentioned earlier), this happens: “then he looked at richie and licked his lips. fading, fading back. becoming clearer and clearer, emptying out, all of the impurities flowing out of him so he could become clear, so that light could flow through…but there was something else he had to say first.” a lot of people take the “impurities” flowing out to mean that he’s finally coming to terms with his sexuality and that he’s finally accepting himself for who he is just before he’s about to die. the impurity was guilt over being gay, and it’s leaving him. we see here that eddie is literally about to die, he’s fading, he is READY to let go and just die; but saying something to richie is more important to him, so he pulls through and whispers richie’s name. he drags himself out of his literal dying thoughts to say something to richie. this wasn’t for some silly joke. it’s obvious he wanted to say something pretty important.

so richie comes to him and asks what he needs to say. and eddie says, “don’t call me eds.” this in and of itself is pretty significant because, as i said before, the nickname “eds” is a sort of secret identity between the two of them that no one else shares. and every time richie calls him eds, this is how eddie responds. it’s him expressing his affection, even dying. but THEN he goes even further. he reaches up and touches richie’s cheek and says, “you know i… i…” and then he dies. like i said, what he needed to say to richie was obviously something extremely important. and the fact that he asked for richie - not for bill, who was literally his main role model in life - insinuates he wasn’t just gonna say “thanks for being such a great friend!”all the evidence leading up to his death makes it pretty clear that he was probably going to confess to richie that he was in love with him, or something along those lines. 

in conclusion, yes, richie and eddie were absolutely written as in love with each other, and anyone who tells you that their relationship was purely “brotherly” probably is either homophobic or has not read as closely as they claimed they have. period. if you read this far i hope you enjoyed because i spent two hours on this shitty essay

**Author's Note:**

> god if you read this i am so so sorry. feel free to scream about it with me on tumblr (quaffles-with-syrup) though,,,, i have no friends in this fandom


End file.
